More cuts at Motorola – Motorola fires 20% of Motorola Labs research division

What’s a struggling mobile phone manufacturer that just can’t seem to reclaim its once-glory in the mobile industry left to do after repeated quarters of miserable performance? Cut more jobs, of course.

In another move to help stave off mounting losses from its handset business, Motorola has announced that it will be cutting 20% of its employees from the research division – Motorola Labs. The research arm of Motorola is tasked with, well, researching new technologies for all aspects of their mobile phone business – a division of Motorola that hasn’t seen an apparent breakthrough or marketable development in what feels like forever.

More than 120 of the 600 engineers and researchers at Motorola Labs will be getting the pink-slip (and hopefully a rockin’ letter of rec’) from Moto’s board of directors come July 1. And, an additional 180 researchers will “reassigned to work in individual business units.” The employee-shuffling out of Motorola Labs is said to “help R&D teams work with their business partners to optimize R&D investment and focus on projects that deliver the greatest value for Motorola.”

Seeing as how Motorola’s full complement of researchers and engineers hasn’t been able turn out any kind of real winner (the Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5‘s spectacularly unimpressive feature-set is proof positive) despite having some serious hype behind its Kodak-shooter, Motorola’s research-cut could be a last resort move to try and revitalize innovation. Or, you know, change out some of the board’s obviously inept leadership. Perhaps all the jumping-ship by senior executives is a sign that the tip-top of the leadership-ladder needs some replacing?